The Live Poets Society (LiPS) meets on the first
Wednesday of each month. Poets and lovers of poetry are welcome to listen and
to read and share their works and discuss poetry in all its varied forms and
uniqueness.
At its next gathering, LiPS will pay tribute
to friend and colleague Nikki Kirby who was tragically killed in a motor
accident at the beginning of July.
Nikki Kirby’s good friend and mentor,
Graham Vivian Lancaster, has chosen Truth
as the evening’s theme and he will read her poems from Words in Emotion, her first
published anthology which contains poems about the wide spectrum of human
emotion and experiences.
Kirby grew up in Swakopmund, Namibia, and
went on to study acting and presenting for film and TV in Cape Town, After her
studies she started working as a presenter on the radio, first in Namibia and
then in South Africa. Apart from hosting her radio show she was also a voice-over
artist.
Dr Amitabh Mitra of Poets Printery, a small
publishing house based at East London, salutes her memory: “Nikki Kirby was one
of South Africa's most promising young poets. Her words steeped in conviction
made poetry change tracks and come out of classrooms of English Literature. Yet
strangely South African poets did not feel the disappearance of one of them,
one of their own, in such a violent trajectory of unseen words. In a world
further divided by smaller worlds where a poet’s origins are questioned
repeatedly even before the poems are read, I feel sad for such South African
Poets whom we had published yet remained constrained akin to the previous era”.
The LiPS meeting will take place at the Collective
on August 7 at 17h30 for 18h00. Admission is free. The Collective is situated
at 48b Florida Road, Greyville, Durban (entrance in 4th Avenue). There is a
cash bar so patrons are asked to refrain from bringing alcohol or fizzy drinks.
More information from LiPS Convener Danny
Naicker on 083 282 0865 or email dnaicker@metsond.co.za